Abstract
Music-based technology is frequently included in early childhood classrooms as an attempt to incorporate music education in the curriculum. However, there is a lack of research that addresses the educational benefits of music-based tablet applications (apps) for young children. Researchers in this study explored the preferences of 4-year-old children (N = 16) for music-based apps in a preschool setting. They found that children preferred those apps that had a high frequency of visual stimulation, were easy to navigate, and/or had familiar music. Although children in the study engaged in social interaction, there was a lack of outward musical behavior. It is anticipated that a knowledge of children’s preferences for music apps will assist with the provision of developmentally appropriate and interactive music-based technology for young children. Additionally, understanding the qualities of music apps that are most likely to promote musical responses (such as singing, rhythmically chanting, moving, or combinations thereof) may help developers create music-based technology that will provide the maximum educational benefits for young children.
Technology and interactive media are integrated widely into today’s society. Digital devices are part of the culture in which young children grow up: they permeate their home and school environments. Contributing to young children’s use of technology, educators and parents believe that digital literacy should be fostered in early childhood (National Association of Young Children [NAEYC], 2012; Rideout, 2011), the highly developmental period of time between birth and age 8 (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). Parents also request that media education be provided in the school curriculum, from the time children are very young (Marsh et al., 2005), which has led to over a decade of technology integration in schools (Holloway, Green, & Livingstone, 2013).
Technology use among young children has increased with greater access to mobile devices (Ofcom, 2014). Rideout (2013) found that 80% of children aged 0–2 in 2013 have used a mobile device for media activity compared to 39% in 2011. In the 0–8 age range, children have often engaged with educational game apps (42%), games that are just for fun (42%), and creative apps that are for drawing, making music, or playing with photos (38%). Forty-five percent of 2-year-olds and 38% of children aged 0–8 have used creative apps (Rideout, 2013), even though many of these apps have not been assessed for educational value (Kucirkova, 2014). Taken together, societal and cultural influences with targeted mass marketing of digital media have played significant roles in the widespread use of technology by young children (Calvert, 2008; Rideout, 2013; Wartella, Blackwell, Lauricella, & Robb, 2013).
The debate surrounding young children’s use of technology
Researchers have identified both positive and negative positions on young children’s use of technology at home and in the classroom (Holloway, Green, & Livingstone, 2013; Marsh et al., 2005). Advocates for technology in early childhood education argue that that the content with which children interact is more important to consider than the amount of time they spend engaging with technology (Kirkorian, Wartella, & Anderson, 2008). When used appropriately to extend learning from traditional materials, technology use has been shown to positively affect young children’s language and cognitive development (Couse & Chen, 2010; Kirkorian et al., 2008). Technology may also supplement other types of learning such as: (a) operational learning, (b) extending knowledge and understanding of the world, (c) dispositions to learn, and (d) the role of technology in everyday life (Plowman, Stevenson, Stephen, & McPake, 2012). Additionally, technology has been found to increase the social interaction of young children, supporting the development of communication skills (Lim, 2013; McPake & Plowman, 2013) and can be an effective learning tool for children with special needs (Wartella et al., 2013).
Although some researchers have found benefits associated with children’s use of technology, others have identified negative outcomes. Anderson and Pempek (2005) discovered that children learn significantly more from live presentations than from equivalent information in digital format, such as content presented in a video. Zimmerman, Christakis, and Meltzoff (2007) warned that the use of educational DVDs slows children’s language development. Researchers have also identified associations between children’s technology use and school difficulties, bullying, obesity, social, and attentional factors (AAP, Council on Communications and Media, 2011; Zimmerman, Glew, Christakis, & Katon, 2005). More than eight hours per week of computer use is associated with less time spent on sports and other outdoor activities, and thus a heavier body mass index among young children (Attewell, Suazo-Garcia, & Battle, 2003). Further, many technologies labeled as “interactive” have limited manipulative or constructive qualities, discouraging play (Elkind, 2007; Goodwin & Highfield, 2012; Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, & Eyer, 2003), which leads to a decrease in imaginative thinking (Burkhead, 2009). When considering the debate regarding the pros and cons of young children’s use of technology, the results are often conflicting and inconclusive (Gardner & Davies, 2014).
Guidelines for technology use among young children
In 2011, guidelines for technology use among children in the USA were established by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) (AAP, 2011; AAP, Council on Communications and Media, 2011, 2013). 1 The guiding principles indicate that young children between 0–2 years of age should have no screen time, and children 3-years-old and up should be limited to one to two hours of screen media per day. Importantly, these guidelines appeared before interactive screen technologies (tablet and smartphone) were introduced to consumers.
McPake and Plowman (2013) dismissed the AAP guidelines, citing them as insufficiently researched with unfounded hypotheses about the effect of technology on children. Co-author of the 2011 AAP guidelines, Christakis (2014) acknowledged the interactive nature of tablet technology and its possible uses with young children and stated that “judicious use of interactive media is acceptable for children younger than the age of 2 years” (p. 400), causing researchers to rethink the appropriate amount of daily screen use by young children, and leaving room for a new interpretation of guidelines for technology use among young children. The barrage of new technologies entering the market and rapid change in children’s time spent with them has outpaced research conducted on their effect on children (Christakis, 2014).
Without clear parameters, there is no standard from which to judge the appropriate age or amount of time for young children to engage with interactive screen technology. It is logical to assume that digital media should be assessed by the same developmentally appropriate principles and practices that guide teaching in other areas. Therefore, parents and early childhood educators need to ensure that the technology young children use is age and individually appropriate, supports exploration and creativity, and encourages divergent thinking (NAEYC, 2012). Researchers have called for young children’s everyday involvement with technology to be identified, with educational strategies found to augment these experiences (Young, 2007).
Research purpose
Young children are exposed to music through an array of technologies. Studies with young children 4 years and younger acknowledge that they experience digital music on a daily basis in home and childcare contexts (Lamont, 2008; Lum, 2008; Webster, 1998; Young, 2008, 2009). However, research on the effect of interactive screen technology on young children is sparse (Couse & Chen, 2010; Holloway, Green, & Livingstone, 2013), and there is little music research in this field. Beyond conflicting guidelines for young children’s use of technology, there exist insufficient research-based criteria to help parents and educators navigate the crowded and ever-evolving music app market. Young children have access to hundreds of music apps for which educational benefits are unknown. By discovering the qualities of apps that young children prefer and respond to musically, researchers may be able to make recommendations to parents and educators about which apps are of most value for early childhood music education. Consequently, the purpose of this research was to identify the characteristics of music apps that young children prefer and the types of apps that promote the greatest number of overt musical responses.
Research strategy
Setting
A naturalistic environment of a 4-year-old preschool classroom was the context for this study. The spacious classroom was part of an early childhood center, which serviced young children between 6 weeks and 6 years of age. Sixteen children, nine boys and seven girls with the mean age of 3.85 years were in the class. The participants were diverse in ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
The teacher utilized a centers-based approach that featured traditional, divergent play as the overarching educational philosophy. Through this method, the children were afforded abundant opportunities to choose where and with what they would like to play from a variety of options such as reading, art, or dramatic play (dress-up) centers. There were centers with blocks and other small toys, a sensory table that was filled with either sand or water, a portion of the classroom with tables and chairs meant for making food, eating and drinking, coloring, and learning games, and other centers that varied from day to day. For the purposes of this study, the researchers created a tablet technology center consisting of a large table with five chairs. Each of the five places had iPads that were loaded with 12 musical apps and headphones.
App selection
Due to the lack of research on app evaluation for young children (Kucirkova, 2014), Weber and Singer’s (2004) research on the television program preferences of young children was used to guide the selection of music apps. Specifically, their definitions of “kid-friendly” (involving attributes like dancing, animation, and characters such as animals, babies, children, and songs) and “less kid-friendly” (devoid of such qualities) informed the initial classification of apps. 2 Two apps, one kid-friendly and one less kid-friendly, were selected for each of the following musical categories: (a) creating melody, (b) creating rhythm, (c) creating loops, (d) familiar songs, (e) ambient sounds, and (f) vernacular instrument bands. Each of the five iPads in the center contained 12 music apps: six kid-friendly and six less kid-friendly. See Table 1 for a description of the comparison of the qualities found in each app.
Qualities of “kid-friendly” and “less kid-friendly” apps.
Note. Italicized apps = “Less kid-friendly” apps.
To further delineate kid-friendly and less kid-friendly apps from one another, a content analysis of characteristics within each app was conducted. The similarities and differences between the apps were compared. Ten characteristics were found to exist among the apps: (a) music begins as app opens, (b) manipulation is needed to create music, (c) music continues without manipulation after initial play, (d) ease of navigating the menu, (e) variety of ways to engage, (f) verbal communication, (g) visual stimulation, (h) familiarity of musical material to children, (i) non-musical options, and (j) style of music. Next, the relevance of each characteristic was rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 4 = the characteristic was fully present within the app to 1 = the characteristic was not present in the app. When the app could not be assessed for a particular characteristic “NA” was used as a label (see Table 2). An outside auditor crosschecked the data to validate the qualities, characteristics, and ratings of the apps.
App classification chart.
Description of iPad apps
Presented below are descriptions of the kid-friendly apps and their less kid-friendly counterparts that the children used in this study.
Creating melody
Juno’s Piano (YogiPlay, 2011) was chosen as the kid-friendly app. It has a small, animated character that verbally gives the player a choice of three different ways to engage with the piano app. The child can choose to learn a song, play together with another person, or free play on the piano. The app Virtuoso Piano Free 3 (Nagy, 2011) was categorized as the less kid-friendly app. It has two keyboards and is a simple way for the user to create a melody.
Creating rhythm
Monkey Drum (Flippfly, 2011) opens with an animated monkey playing drums to a melody. The user is directed to a menu with options to choose instruments for the monkey to play, or for the user to listen to songs, dress up the monkey, and play a piano while interacting with the monkey. The app was selected as the kid-friendly app. On the other hand, less kid-friendly Percussive (Touch Media Productions, 2010) allows the user to explore and create music with five different types of melodic percussion instruments: the wooden xylophone, glockenspiel, kalimba, marimba, and vibraphone.
Creating loops
Toca Band (Toca Boca AB, 2013) was chosen as a kid-friendly app. When it opens there is an empty stage with eight circular spots and 16 characters residing at the bottom of the screen in a line. After the user drags a character to a spot on the stage, that character’s specific grouping of sounds begins to loop. Different combinations of characters on the stage result in a different combination of sounds, creating a distinctive song every time. With the less kid-friendly app, Loopseque (Casual Underground, 2009), the user interfaces with one large colorful circle in the center of the iPad, divided into multiple sectors. A highlighter circles around the sectors, and when passing over a selected area, it makes a tone and a loop begins to play. As the user taps on different sectors, they are incorporated to the evolving loop.
Familiar songs
Kids Song Collection (Kids Game Club by TabTale, 2013) is a kid-friendly app that features six songs from which users can choose: “Twinkle, Twinkle,” the “ABC Song,” “If You’re Happy,” “Old McDonald,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Christmas Song,” otherwise known as “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” The songs are accompanied by a synthesizer and sung by an adult. Characters move and dance as words flash across the screen throughout the song. The less kid-friendly app was the researcher-created iTunes Collection (Apple, 2013). This app has the same six familiar songs as featured on Kids Song Collection. Each song has different cover art, with pictures of Dora the Explorer, Disney characters, a kangaroo, numbers and letters, and puppies. These songs feature children singing with instrumental accompaniment.
Ambient sounds
As the kid-friendly app, Ambient Mood Flashlight (Kids Place, 2013) has five circles with smiling faces and balloons, hearts and red lips, a moon and bats, pink and purple colors with stars, and a night sky. After one of the five scenes is chosen, the objects begin to move. As the user touches the objects, they make ambient sounds: some rhythmic, some pitched. Bloom HD (Opal Limited, 2015) features a multicolored interface with polka dots that appear at different times, each accompanied by a tone, and disappear slowly. When the screen is touched, the points of contact become new polka dots that are accompanied by a different tone. This app was chosen as the less kid-friendly app.
Vernacular instrument bands
Kid-friendly Lily Rock Band (Alper Ozer, 2013) showcases a baby playing lead guitar (Lily) and four animals in a band, as well as five different settings to interact with Lily. Users can play along with a rock tune, “make their own music,” and “make the characters go crazy” with two different rock-style songs that loop and have options to play along. In all five settings, the user can choose to create sparks, drop balloons and colorful streamers from the ceiling, or change the lighting. The less kid-friendly app, Rockmate (Fingerlab, 2011) features two sets of guitar strings, a drum set, and a keyboard, with chord choices for the guitars and keyboard. In this way, users can play different instruments at the same time to create the sound of a band.
iPad preparation and data collection
The 12 apps were uploaded to the five iPads that were in the iPad center, with the app icons alternating between kid-friendly and less kid-friendly on the screen. Data was collected over an eight-day period for a total of 7 hours, 59 minutes, and 25 seconds (07:59:25). Due to the centers orientation of the classroom, the data collection period varied each day, ranging between 47 minutes to 1 hour, 25 minutes. All sessions were video recorded in full on two iPad minis from angles that allowed for the capture of all of the children’s interactions with each other and the iPads. Each session was also recorded from a closer angle with an iPad that was handheld. Additionally, fieldnotes (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) were taken on the children’s behaviors throughout the data collection period.
Data observation software
The video data was uploaded to Scribe 4.2 (Duke, 2011), which was used to code and analyze the length of time that children engaged with each app and the musical responses they gave when playing with a particular app. In Scribe, the researcher can open a new or previously saved file with the open tab, enter different participants and their behaviors to color-code using the setup menu, and observe by pressing any of the behavior buttons when a behavior begins and ends. With the note button, the user can type a time-stamped memo with specific information regarding a participant’s coded behavior. Through the review tab, the researcher can view all participants’ coded behaviors, the start and end times of such behavior and the length of time spent on a particular task. The user can view participants’ behaviors through a timeline or chronological order of events. Finally, it is possible to view the results in summary form, with the number of times that the subject completed a behavior, the rate/minute, the total time and the percentage of time that the subject spent on a particular behavior, and the average length of time that a subject spent performing a specific behavior.
Validity
An external auditor who randomly crosschecked 10% of the 1510 time-stamped codes in the Scribe files established the validity of the coding procedures. After opening each Scribe file, the auditor chose 10% of the total number of codes at random within that particular file to cross-check, which was between 0 and 26 codes. When clicking on the codes the video automatically loaded at the particular time-stamp, allowing the auditor to crosscheck the codes with the video. The auditor ensured that the codes were accurate by confirming that the video clips began and ended at the correct times. There was 99% agreement with the coding (149 codes out of 151).
Preferred iPad apps
To address the qualities of music apps that the young children preferred, researchers analyzed individual children’s music app preferences by viewing the videos for each child and his or her time spent on each app. When a child opened or closed an app a time-stamp was created on Scribe.
The 12 apps as well as the phrases “off-task on iPad” and “off-task off iPad” were listed as behaviors. The “off-task on iPad” code was used when the children were engaged with the iPad but with non-music apps (those apps that were fixtures on the iPad) and other functions on the iPad. The “off-task off iPad” code was used to track when children sat at the table but did not play with the iPads; this included actions such as playing with headphones or talking to others with headphones off.
Children’s app behaviors were assigned a color, so that when reviewing the data the length of time a child spent on each app could be observed. For example, under the group name of the app, “Virtuoso,” the behaviors were labeled as “Child 1: Virtuoso,” “Child 2: Virtuoso,” “Child 3: Virtuoso,” and so on. Therefore, the total time each child and the total time the whole group spent on a particular app were substantiated (see Table 3). This procedure was repeated for the eight days of data collection.
Total time spent on each app.
Total amount of iPad center time was 07:59:25.
Children’s app preferences
Out of the 07:59:25 minutes of center time, the children spent the following percentages of time on each app: Toca Band: 19.29%; Kids Song Collection: 15.46%; Lily Rock Band: 14.25%; iTunes Song Collection: 7.27%; Monkey Drum: 6.16%; Ambient Mood Flashlight: 3.68%; Juno’s Piano: 3.59%; Bloom HD: 2.01%; Rockmate: 1.48%; Percussive: 0.71%; Loopseque: 0.48%; and Virtuoso: 0.37%; The percentage of time spent on each app by the children as a whole can be seen in Figure 1; the black bars represent the kid-friendly apps and the grey bars the less kid-friendly apps.
Total time spent on each app.
Children’s musical responses to apps
To determine which apps evoked the greatest frequency of musical responses, such as singing, rhythmic chanting, or moving, the researchers coded for both children’s solo musical interaction (musical responses of an individual child to an app) as well as shared musical interaction. Shared musical interaction was represented by the prefix “SI” before the musical behavior. For an interaction to qualify as SI (shared musical interaction) two or more children needed to make eye contact and sing, rhythmically chant, or move together, indicating that they were playing together musically. The specific codes listed under each of the 12 apps were: SI Moving, SI Singing, SI Chanting, SI Singing and Moving, Solo Moving, Solo Singing, Solo Chanting, and Solo Singing and Moving.
Movements that were coded as responses to music were head bobbing, rocking back and forth, fist pumping, dramatic motioning, air drumming, hand clapping, foot stomping, and bouncing up and down. Chanting was defined as speaking in rhythm, whereas singing was defined by a child attempting to sing, even if this was not in tune.
Overt musical responses
Similar to coding for preferred iPad apps, each musical behavior (singing, rhythmic chanting, and/or moving) was assigned a color, and that color was kept consistent despite the name of the child under which the behavior was listed. The data was coded for the total time that children spent giving musical responses for all of the apps, and the length of time that the children gave musical responses to each app individually (see Figures 2 and 3). Out of 07:59:25, children spent 01:08:01, or 14% of the time giving overt musical responses (see Table 4).
Percentage of children’s musical responses.
Musical responses to specific apps.
Total time of children’s musical responses.
Total amount of iPad center time was 07:59:25.
Summary of results
The results demonstrated that the children preferred kid-friendly over less kid-friendly apps. In particular, children strongly preferred three apps: Toca Band, Kids Song Collection, and Lily Rock Band; they least preferred Percussive, Loopseque, and Virtuoso.
The children preferred musical apps with the following qualities: music continuing without manipulation, ease of navigating the menu, variety of ways to engage with an app, high amount of visual stimulation, familiarity and style of musical material, and animated characters—animals, babies, or children engaged in movement, and/or dancing. They least preferred those apps that required verbal communication, manipulation to create music, or that had non-musical options.
Children provided overt musical responses for a short duration of time out of the entirety of the data collection period (14%). They moved in response to the music more than they sang, and they never rhythmically chanted. The children spent 00:07:12 (1.5% of the time) interacting musically with their peers (singing, moving, or singing and moving together) (see Tables 4 and 5).
Total time of all musical responses to apps.
Total amount of iPad center time was 07:59:25.
Findings and discussion
Five categories relative to the research purpose are used to present the findings of the study: (a) children’s app preferences, (b) children’s responses to apps, (c) apps and musical responses, (d) children’s musical interaction, and (e) non-preferred apps. Although these findings cannot be generalized to a larger population, they may be transferrable to a setting similar to the one in which this study was conducted.
Children’s app preferences
Children most preferred apps that had music that was familiar in content, or style, were visually stimulating, and of a convergent nature that allowed them to listen to music without requiring a great deal of manipulation. Of the top three preferred apps, Toca Band and Lily Rock Band both have an extremely high degree of visual stimulation with brightly colored characters and backgrounds, rarely requiring the child to direct the onscreen activity of the app. As soon as these apps open, music begins to play and there is immediate action on the screen. Kids Song Collection has similar features to Toca Band and Lily Rock Band, with slightly less visual stimulation. That children most preferred these apps is of concern in terms of current early childhood educational philosophy and practice. Early childhood development researchers discourage children’s use of technologies that are of a convergent nature as they direct a child’s learning through play rather than encourage creative thinking (Goodwin & Highfield, 2012; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2003).
Children’s responses to apps
Apps that evoked musical responses, such as singing and moving were those that featured familiar, rock, or vernacular music. Of the most preferred apps, Toca Band incorporated pop music, Kids Song Collection played familiar children’s music, and Lily Rock Band showcased rock music. This theme follows research in the USA conducted on children’s musical preferences. Children have been found to prefer rock music or vernacular music, that is, music making practices used among the general population (Woody, 2007) to other genres (Brittin, 2000; Jellison & Flowers, 1991). Interestingly, many North American early childhood music curricula do not include these styles of music as basic repertoire for early childhood music classes (e.g., Music for Little People, 2012; Musikgarten, 2015; Valerio, Reynolds, Bolton, Taggart, & Gordon, 1998).
Apps and musical responses
The children’s preferred apps did not encourage a diverse array of overt musical responses such as singing, rhythmic chanting, moving, and combinations thereof. Children responded musically to the apps for a small amount of time out of the entirety of the data collection period (14%). At the iPad center, children spent more time singing as compared to chanting (0%) though singing responses to the apps were minimal (5.58%), only consisting of attempts to sing along with familiar songs. Regarding movement, children moved parts of their bodies to the beat. With the familiar song, “If You’re Happy” from Kids Song Collection, children did stomp their feet or clap their hands as directed by the song. Otherwise, the apps did not facilitate varied singing, movement, rhythmic, or musically creative responses that would be characteristic of an early childhood music class.
Children’s musical interaction
Incorporating music apps in a centers-based environment encouraged little musical engagement among the children. Children spent only 1.5% of the time interacting musically with their peers in response to the apps. Anecdotally, children were observed playing together on certain apps, as well as starting and stopping apps concurrently, but rarely sang, moved, or sang and moved together. This finding may relate to the fact that they could not perceive what other children could hear due to the use of headphones; the headphones may have lessened the children’s tendency to interact musically. Notably, the choice to use headphones was made so that children could hear the sound of the apps over the noisy and bustling centers environment.
Non-preferred apps
The three least preferred apps, Virtuoso, Loopseque, and Percussive were divergent and required children to manipulate them in order to create music. They did not have a high degree of visual stimulation or animation, nor were they “catchy,” absent from music playing as the app opened and continuing even though the children stopped interacting with them. These apps did not command young children’s attention or elicit musical responses. It is possible that young children did not have the musical skills to move beyond creative engagement with the musical stimuli. In addition, there was no explicit, play-based guidance on how to engage with the apps.
Implications for app design
This study is an entry point to an emerging set of implications for the development of music apps, and their use with young children. When creating music apps, young children’s preferences should be taken into account so that they become and stay engaged with the content. To be appealing to children, music apps should have menus that are easy to navigate, a variety of ways to engage, visual stimulation, familiar musical material, music that continues without manipulation, and animated characters such as animals, babies, children, movement, and/or dancing. Apps that were mostly or entirely open-ended where the children were the source of musicking rather than an app, did not garner the interest of the children.
Accounting for children’s musical preferences is important in respect to the design of apps that keep children’s interest. Repertoire that is familiar, perhaps music that is found in the home or featured in early childhood music classes could be programmed into apps. The incorporation of music with stylistic characteristics of pop, rock, familiar, or vernacular music should also be considered as this music may be a catalyst for children to learn by doing, encouraging musical responses and interaction.
In this study, children preferred apps that required little manipulation. With this in mind, apps should have qualities that facilitate divergent play by eliciting an array of musical responses. Developers should work in tandem with early childhood music educators to design apps that encourage varied developmentally appropriate musical responses from children. Creating apps that are open-ended and facilitate children’s musical responses through play may stimulate musically creative thinking. Infusing apps with activities that promote a variety of musical responses may raise the level of opportunities for children to direct their own musical learning. Apps that have early childhood music class simulations with the intent to supplement early childhood music class activities could also be developed.
Music apps should not serve as a substitute form of early childhood music by caregivers. Many early childhood teachers do not feel confident about teaching music and believe that they lack the skills and musical knowledge to plan music activities (Scott-Kassner, 1999; Suthers, 2004). As they incorporate music technology in their classrooms, early childhood teachers should be informed about the educational shortcomings and benefits of current music apps so that they choose those designed to promote children’s musical growth.
Early childhood music teachers and researchers need to negotiate the blurred line between children’s use of music-based apps and traditional early childhood music education. The proliferation of music apps and use of screen technology by young children deems it necessary for early childhood music teachers to become familiar with apps that can supplement the musical development of young children. Early childhood music teachers should also serve in an advisory capacity to parents and early childhood educators regarding music apps that are appropriate for young children. Further, early childhood music researchers must become involved in app development and the dissemination of research findings.
Parents and early childhood educators will continue to provide children with access to technological devices. If technology is used as a supplement to music education in early childhood settings, the quality of musically educational apps for young children must be of the highest standard.
Suggestions for future research
Due to the scant number of studies regarding young children’s use of music technology and engagement with musical apps, research needs to be conducted to determine the qualities of apps that are musically educational and developmentally appropriate. Therefore, this study may be used as a baseline for future research into young children’s involvement with interactive screen media and music apps.
Through a cyclical process of research and app design, developers could create apps that are both appealing to young children and encourage musical responses from them. The iterative, three-stage SoDaR model proposed by Brown (2007) may be efficacious for this purpose:
1) identification of the learning opportunity for which software development is required and establishing an appropriate approach to take advantage of that opportunity, 2) design and production of the software, and 3) implementation and refinement of the software via application in an educational setting. (p. 3)
Because parents and early childhood educators provide children with tablet technology, researchers should seek out their preferences concerning music apps for young children. Understanding whether parents and teachers choose certain apps over others due to their perceived educational value may unlock ideas for the design of apps that are likely to be given to young children. Further, knowing the qualities that parents and teachers find appealing will provide insight on how to educate them about developmentally appropriate technology.
Researchers should not only delve into the topic of music apps, but should also strive to better understand the social implications of incorporating a tablet technology center into the early childhood classroom. Through anecdotal observation, the children in this study interacted socially through verbal means and social referencing. Not only did children play together on the iPads, saying things such as, “Play rock baby with me!” but they also worked together in a cooperative learning environment in which there was very little adult involvement, helping each other to solve problems such as switching from one app to another. As a follow-up to this research, a similar study might be conducted from both musical and social perspectives in which social interactions between children at the tablet technology center are analyzed. Researchers could compare the frequency of social interactions to the frequency of musical interactions between children. Additionally, researchers could compare the social interaction among students at a tablet-based music center with the social interaction at other centers, to observe whether such a center has “staying power” in light of children’s play preferences.
The themes of this study indicate that musical iPad applications did not promote the diversity or frequency of musical responses that would be typical in an early childhood music class, indicating that these applications should not be viewed as a pedagogical replacement for early childhood music instruction. This research also provides a context from which to examine music apps and their potential for musically educational use among young children. With the concerted effort of music researchers, educators, parents, and app developers, it is possible to design applications that facilitate a variety of musical responses, are developmentally appropriate, and appealing to children—fostering and supporting musical growth at a critical stage in young children’s lives.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of James Humberstone in the development of this article.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.